


boughs of holly (on my heart)

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Based in Canon Verse, Bottom Connor, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gentle Sex, Husbands, Light Angst, Lingerie, Lots of tears, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Top Hank Anderson, the usual tropes and suspects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 01:43:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17633705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Four years now into their marriage, Connor's gradually managed to bring some hard-won Christmas spirit back into the Anderson household. Despite the holiday cheer and festivities (including a lacy lingerie set Connor receives from a mysterious source at the DPD Christmas party), Hank finally decides they they need to visit someone special together on Christmas Eve. It's a trip to the cemetery he's been putting off for a while, and emotions are still running high even when they return home that night.





	boughs of holly (on my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> artwork collab with the wonderful Naz: [here on twitter!](https://twitter.com/naz_hk/status/1091732746488164352)

  
  
Hank walks into the house one cold afternoon the day after Thanksgiving to find the fragrant smell of cinnamon cloves and apples heavy on the air. He’s carrying two grocery bags in one hand and a half-gallon of milk in the other. 2% milkfat, this time—Connor had insisted.

“What’s that smell?” he calls from the foyer, dropping his key ring onto the front table with a clatter. He tips his face up like a seasoned hound dog to sniff the air again. “It smells like…Christmas?”

Connor’s voice wafts down the hall from the kitchen along with the source of the smell. “I read that boiling spices and dried fruit makes a nice simmering potpourri for the holiday season,” he says. Hank quirks an eyebrow at that as he turns into the kitchen and sure enough, there’s Connor in a pair of sweatpants and a cranberry-colored sweater, stirring a pot Hank hasn’t seen or used in about four years solid. There’s honest-to-God cinnamon sticks floating in it.

“Do you like it?” Connor asks, stepping to the side so Hank can set the grocery bags down on the counter. He slides the milk into the fridge and comes back out with a handful of green grapes, popping one into his mouth while Connor hitches his pot-stirring hand up on one hip with the wooden spoon still fisted in it, looking a whole hell of a lot more like Holly Homemaker than a hardnosed police detective.

“It’s still November,” Hank says with a grimace, crunching another grape between his teeth.

“It’s _festive_ ,” Connor insists, LED briefly spinning yellow, but it quickly turns back to blue when Hank closes the gap between them and presses in close to drop a kiss against the tiny ring of light at his temple. Connor tips his nose into the warmth of Hank’s scarf wound around his neck and analyzes the components of aftershave and cologne mingling in the fabric there. He wishes he could just bury his face in the smell of Hank and take comfort in it without picking apart the chemical composition, but so goes the life of an android with a human husband.

“If you don’t like it I can take it off the stove,” Connor murmurs while Hank’s big hand snakes under the hem of his sweater to press against the small of his back. “You know I can’t smell it like you do.”

Hank isn’t the least bit bothered by the crisp scent of chai and cardamom shimmering throughout his house and says as much between kisses planted against the softness of Connor’s mouth. “In fact,” he says, slipping two fingers under the waistband of Connor’s sweats to find him bare-assed underneath, “I think something about you reading Martha Stewart articles is really doing it for me.”

“Is that so?” Connor asks, doing a quick internal search about who this Martha is before closing the window and quickly erasing his own Google history. Hank is busy kissing a whiskery line up the column of his throat, warm and eager. “I can—ah, _Hank_ —always look into some other things for holiday décor purposes, if you’d be open to it.”

Hank has one arm out of his coat and the other still trapped in the sleeve, but he somehow manages to pick Connor up and carry him away from the stove to the opposite counter where he sets him down and immediately wedges himself between his legs.

“Babe,” he says, grinning like a wolf when Connor pops him on the ass with the flat side of his wooden spoon. “You can light up this whole damn house like the North Pole on Christmas if you want to.”

“Don’t tempt me, Mr. Anderson,” Connor says, and then decides that may be exactly what he intends to do.  


* * *  


The conceptual phenomena of the holiday season isn’t new anymore to Connor, five years now into post-deviancy and a shared life he wouldn’t trade for anything with Hank. But there remains a certain mint-penny shine and appeal there that he finds borderline intoxicating, even if he can’t experience the tastes and smells of the season the same way many others do. Connor can still revel in the glitter and lights and rampant overstimulation of how Christmas takes over Detroit just as soon as the turkey-and-stuffing leftovers are gone, and he does so merrily and wholeheartedly, even if Hank doesn’t always share the same stripe of enthusiasm for things like door-to-door carolers and pre-lit reindeer.

Connor comes home from the precinct in the early December evenings and shrugs out of his jacket and shoulder holster, carefully placing his gun in a drawer in the bedroom dresser. He changes into comfier house clothes and takes off everything he’d worn to work save for his wedding band, and once dinner is done and Hank is settled on the couch he goes through the motions of adding a new touch to the house whenever it strikes him.

Bristly evergreen branches and some artificial sprigs of holly show up on the mantelpiece first. There hadn’t been much up there to start with except one or two framed photos and some dust, and Connor assembles it all into an arrangement his programming deems most pleasing to the eye. The setup grows from there, first with a little brass wire sculpture of a stag that had been a handmade gift from Markus, and then with a stalwart nutcracker with a grey beard that Connor bought simply because it reminded him of Hank.

“I do _not_ look like that,” Hank had snorted, and once Connor painted a little gap between the nutcracker’s two front teeth he’d only grumbled and blushed and tried not to smile when Connor set the wooden doll aside and bent over the back of the sofa to kiss him.

(Hank only quits making snide comments about the nutcracker when Connor finds a brown-eyed one with smooth rosy cheeks and sets it up next to the other for good measure.)

A wreath shows up on the front door and gold and silver tinsel somehow gets wound around the mailbox post. Sumo, old and deaf as he is, even gets a handsome red leather collar to wear on their short walks up the block and back. Connor buys three boxes of those fat and colorful Christmas bulbs, the kind that clink like marbles with they knock together, and gets the ladder out to hang them up all by himself early one Saturday morning.

And maybe Hank’s a little sore he didn’t get asked to at least come out and hold the damn ladder steady, but then again, he’d once trashed everything leftover from Christmases past and there’d been nothing left of the holiday in his house after Cole died. Least of all, the spirit to keep celebrating it alone—until Connor showed up.

In light of all that Connor’s done for him and brought into his life, the one thing Hank insists they do together every year since the Christmas of ‘39 is pick out a tree. Connor initially made a few offhand comments about the practicality of an artificial tree and how they’d be able to reuse it each year without killing a living organism, but Hank hadn’t been too worried about that when there was age-old tradition to uphold.

“Your first tree has to be a real one,” he’d said, driving to the lot for the first time in four years and trying his damndest not to feel sick about it. “I don’t make the rules, but that’s just how it is.”

So they’d picked out their fat little fir tree and then its antecessor every year thereafter, hoisting the needled branches in through the front door and setting up a tree stand in the living room for it to spend the rest of its merry life up through New Year’s Day. That evening would be set aside for decorating the damn thing, and the first year Hank didn’t have anything but stale popcorn to string and an old fishing lure he’d found in the garage, but it was still his and Connor’s tree. _Their_ tree. And every year there’d been something new to add to it, bulbs and lights and an ancient Polaroid photo Tina had taken of them at the precinct Christmas party under a wayward sprig of mistletoe. Connor keeps bringing home garlands like a magpie furnishing his lover’s nest and eventually Hank catches on enough to start doing the same.

One little thing at a time. Piece by piece, pulling the puzzle into a bigger picture.

Christmas aside, that was the beauty of building a life with Connor. Starting from the ground up where they could slowly reshape the notion of family, together, without being beholden to chain-rattling ghosts from the past. Connor’s enthusiasm and love felt like a series of stepping stones Hank could follow sometimes, as if he was being carefully guided back into the real world and the things that went on there. From the ashes of grief his android boyfriend—and eventually husband—had delivered him into the arms of being human once more.

And really, wasn’t that something. But Hank doesn’t tend to question it anymore, long since grown into the habit of merely being thankful for a gift that couldn’t be bought or given in a box. It was the kind of thing that could only be promised when he placed a gold band on the smooth white plastic of Connor’s left ring finger, and he had. That much had been easy when it was all said and done.

So Christmas rolls around every year like clockwork and because Connor’s there and doing what Connor does, Hank’s got more than enough reason for the season, all the rest of it be damned.  


* * *  


The Detroit police department’s annual holiday party falls on the last Thursday before Christmas this year. Some poor sap from the rookie squad gets drafted into hanging up tinsel and a chintzy banner in the break room and somebody always remembers to drag out the little two-foot tree from storage, some fucking relic they’ve been putting up every year since 2010 at least. It only lights up on one side anymore, dim and dusty, but that doesn’t stop Connor from fluffing up the sad branches and putting a tin foil star on top that he made using the wrapping from Hank’s lunch one afternoon.

After Cole, Hank used to phone the Christmas party shit in without a single given fuck. He’d grab one or two glasses of Ben’s spiked ‘nog and then excuse himself to the bathroom and then all the way down the elevator and into the parking lot to drive home. Jeff called the first year or two, mostly just to see where the hell he’d gone halfway into the workday, but Hank never answered the phone and Jeff was smart enough to already know why.

That was then.

And well—this is now.

It’s two days before Christmas Eve and somebody’s cranked up holiday music on one of their terminals and Reed’s on his third glass of punch, a touch rowdier than usual but otherwise content to sit sprawled across Richard’s tidy desk while the android himself leans back between his knees, watching everybody with both eyes and LED lit up blue. One of his hands is wrapped around Gavin’s ankle and Hank notices that he gently squeezes every time Reed starts getting a little too loud.

Fowler’s left his office long enough to oversee the gift exchange, still wearing the red Santa hat Tina had snuck up and put on his head from behind. The remnants of their catered holiday lunch buffet are scattered across the breakroom table and somebody had thought to bring in a fruitcake that’s gone mostly untouched. Connor’s shortbread cookies are almost all gone, though—something he’d still be beaming about if he wasn’t currently watching a wrapped parcel get passed down his way by Officer Wilson with rapt eyes.

“You’re the last man standing,” Wilson says, handing the box over after giving it a little shake. None of the gifts had been marked and all had been brought in to be doled out anonymously to whoever was lucky—or unlucky—enough to receive them. No big surprise, but everybody in DPD was kind of either a slut or a wise-ass, because Hank had wound up with a package of adult diapers and a bottle of watermelon-flavored lube and Richard’s been happily sporting an honest-to-God leather O-ring choker for the past twenty minutes. Tina had gotten a pair of fuzzy cuffs and a dick-shaped straw and whatever Reed had seen in his box remained hidden, because the second he laid eyes on it he’d flushed beet-red and slammed the lid back on with a choked sound.

“Oh, just what you wanted, Gavin,” Richard had deadpanned much to his partner’s horror, having already shrewdly seen past the gift wrap. “A new butt plug.”

Connor’s now holding the last unclaimed box of the bunch in his lap, looking vaguely scandalized even though he hasn’t even opened it yet. His LED keeps cycling in a constant flux of yellow. The wrapping looks innocent enough, just shiny silver paper that looks like it came from a local department store, and he makes careful working of sliding his thumb under the taped sections to pop them up one by one.

“Get a move on, robo-boy wonder,” Reed says despite Richard’s grip tightening around his ankle. “It’ll be fucking Christmas by the time we see what’s inside.”

“You should show us your gift again in the meantime, Detective,” Connor quips back, still opening his box with care. Hank snorts and leans in closer to look over Connor’s shoulder as he lifts the lid off the shirt box.

They’re first greeted with the sight of shimmering tissue paper, and Connor parts through the crisp fold and opens it up like he’s dismantling a bomb. Then Hank watches as Connor slips his pinkies in the straps of something and pulls a slinky swath of sheer crimson fabric from the box. They all gape at it for a long moment, and then Gavin lets out a barking laugh touched with disbelief.

“Holy shit, that’s—!?”

“Lingerie?” Connor asks, fingering the delicate lace overlay on the bosom of the garment. He looks genuinely confused for a moment, LED spinning yellow, smooth brow drawn into a tiny furrow. “Am I…supposed to wear it—right now?”

“Of course you’re supposed to wear it, Connor,” Richard says when nobody else makes a peep, _tsk_ ing under his breath. “Were you planning on using it to apprehend suspects on the street? As for when, I’m sure the Lieutenant wouldn’t have any qualms about you demonstrating it around the house.”

Hank feels his face flush red enough to match the nightie and forcefully clears his throat. He doesn’t have any issues with telling anybody who asks that he and Connor are happily married, thank you very fucking much, but having the whole DPD day shift imagining his husband in Mrs. Claus’s boudoir finest is a little too much.

“I’m sitting right fucking here, Rich,” he says. “For the love of God.”

But Connor’s not finished unwrapping his gift yet. He lays the negligee across his knees and then reaches back into the tissue paper, this time pulling out a matching thong in scarlet lace. He holds it up for a closer inspection and Hank nearly swallows his tongue when he sees that the panties don’t have a crotch sewn into them.

“Oh,” Connor says as he scrunches the thong back between his hands to hide it away, an artificial flush spreading across his cheeks. His LED is bright red before stuttering back to a more serene blue. “That’s certainly a unique feature.”

Hank’s ready to crawl under his desk and a few titters and laughs strike up from the others, but Fowler’s clearly had enough holiday cheer now that the boxes are unwrapped and the food’s gone cold.

“Good to know our public remains safe in the hands of Detroit’s finest and brightest,” he says, rising up from his seat to return to the office with a long-suffering sigh. “Now put all this bullshit away and get back to work.”

Connor wastes no time with carefully folding his new lingerie back into its box, tucking it under the sparkly tissue and replacing the lid in record time. By the time Fowler’s office door is shutting the parcel is already hidden from view entirely, either under Connor’s desk or concealed in a drawer somewhere.

Hank downs the last swig of eggnog in his coffee cup and waits until Reed and Richard get up to wander over to the breakroom, Reed still laughing and pulling faces through the glass panel at them the whole while.

“Why would somebody buy that with me in mind?” Connor asks, glancing at Hank from across his terminal. “Did you—?”

“It wasn’t me, babe,” Hank says, dragging a hand down his face. “I for one like to keep work and our home life separate.”

The light at Connor’s temple is yellow for a while after that, even as he sits and manually goes through reports on the workstation computer when he could easily file through them in his head instead.

When they leave together later that evening and begin the drive back home through the dark drape of December dusk, the plain shirt box is nowhere to be seen or found. Hank forgets about it altogether sometime the next day, the gift exchange lost through the sieve of his short-term memory once they take on a new homicide case tied in with Detroit’s throng of android clubs and speakeasies. 

Connor keeps mum about it, throwing his all into the case at work and expertly extricating himself from his detective mode only when they’re back at home with Sumo, snuggled up on the couch under some abysmal afghan and watching whatever on television while the heater hums and the sky thinks about snowing outside.

In the lead-up to Christmas, Hank sometimes finds himself staring at the decorated tree, the three little crocheted stockings on the mantel, the top of Connor’s head where he’s sprawled across Hank’s chest with his hearing processor directly over a familiar heartbeat. It would be perfect, and maybe it already is—but it could be infinitely better if it weren’t missing one other person who made up another vast cornerstone of Hank’s old life.

He tries not to dive too deep into old haunts from the past but it’s something of an inevitable thing. Wounds that never quite heal, scars that open like trap doors to the barest touch. Fact is, he’ll miss Cole for the rest of his numbered days. Misses him like a gulp of oxygen he can’t draw all the way into his lungs, still breathing but somehow always hungered for more air.

Hank accepts it, but sometimes he wishes the absence of what he lost didn’t have to hurt so fucking bad. He wishes they could see Cole on Christmas morning—he wishes _Connor_ could see him, all of them together, one little happy dysfunctional offbeat family. Four stockings above the fireplace instead of three. Hank’s sneaky bites taken out of the sugar cookies Cole had set out the night before.

 _No, no more Santa_ , Hank has to remind himself. If Cole were still alive he’d be fourteen this year, already well on his way to being a young man. In high school, maybe dating—girls or guys, Hank wouldn’t give a damn either way. They’d be talking about getting his driving permit the next year. They’d be…

He has to stop himself in these wandering moments, tether back to the reality he’s living in. Cole is in a graveyard just outside of Detroit proper. He’s been there close to a decade, now, and he’s lucky if he gets any visitors on Christmas at all if there’s hard snow on the ground. It makes Hank feel sick with some guilt he can’t quite place, and he doesn’t realize how tightly he’s squeezing Connor in his arms until his partner tips his head up to look at him with warm brown eyes, LED still blinking sapphire but expression gone vaguely concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, quiet, splaying a hand across Hank’s chest. They’re just a few hours away from Christmas Eve and they have to work half the day tomorrow, but Hank’s not worried about that. He makes a rough sound in the back of his throat and lets his eyes wander over to the television screen again.

“Thought I might take a trip out to the cemetery tomorrow,” he says, trying not to blurt it all out in a rush. “After work, maybe. Just a—just a quick visit to…y’know. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to—”

“I’ll come with you,” Connor says, firmly resolute. He’s visited Cole’s gravestone before, gone with Hank in the spring or summer months when there was thick green grass growing around the marble set into the earth. He’s laid flowers on it a time or two, silently removing the dead ones and tidying things up around the small plot while Hank sat on the ground in front of it. But they’ve never been together so close to Christmas.

Hank rests his palm in the middle of Connor’s back, tracing the edge of a shoulder blade. If Connor’s t-shirt was gone he’d be able to see how the synth-skin had withdrawn there, leaving nothing but smooth white plastic beneath the pad of his thumb.

“It’ll be Christmas Eve,” Hank says lamely. He doesn’t know why he’s even trying to debate this. “If you wanted to stay home with Sumo, you know I wouldn’t care.”

Connor lifts himself up some to look his husband more squarely in the eye. “Hank,” he says in that one voice, and oh hell, Hank’s got it coming now. “If I can be blunt with you right now, I need to remind you that the only reason I give a shit about Christmas at all is because I get to spend it with you.”

Hank lets out a winded little laugh at that. “You _love_ Christmas,” he says, raising a hand to gesture at everything around them, the lights and the garland and the stockings Connor lovingly crocheted by hand, the crafty beautiful bastard. “I sure as hell didn’t put any of this stuff up.”

Connor’s LED blinks to red for a split second and Hank feels regret pierce his heart as swift as an arrow. “Shit, Con, you know I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you mean,” Connor sighs, chewing on his lip in a needless human habit he’s picked up from Hank somewhere along the way. “But don’t sit there and act like you don’t know what I mean, either.”

“I love Christmas because I love you,” he adds after a moment, temple flashing from yellow to blue.

Hank sags against the sofa like all his puppet strings have been cut, Connor still sprawled on top of him, and reaches up to push his fingers through the soft hair at the crown of the android’s head. Connor only drops his mouth somewhere against Hank’s shoulder and lets him cup the back of his neck.

“Alright,” Hank murmurs, feeling Connor’s lips curve up into a tiny smile. “We’ll go after work tomorrow.”

He happens to glance out the window, then, just in time to catch the first few flakes of freshly falling snow.  


* * *  


The next day drags onward for an eternity. Getting through each hour on the clock is like pulling another sore tooth and everybody on day shift at the precinct seems to be buzzing with some restless energy, chomping at the bit to get out of work and go home to their Christmas Eve takeout dinners and big happy families. Even Reed is rearing to go, biting his thumbnail down to the quick while he fields phone calls and pretends to do paperwork at his desk.

He’s snapping a little more than usual, maybe, but keeps stealing dreamy-eyed glances at Richard that aren’t quite as subtle as he thinks. It isn’t until Hank texts Connor _ask Rich why his boy toy’s losing his fuckin cool_ that an answer dings back on his phone almost instantaneously in typical Connor fashion, not a single misspelling or emoji in sight.

**_Gavin is finally taking Richard home to meet his father and stepmother tonight. He’s apparently been more difficult to deal with than normal._ **

Hank snorts out loud but sets his phone down and leaves it at that. Connor looks up at him from across their terminal divide and winks ever so slightly. And maybe Hank can theoretically sympathize with a shithead like Reed on some level when it comes to that stuff—main difference being, by the time he’d brought Connor into his life, both his parents had been long since dead and buried. His father had suffered a massive heart attack in Hank’s forties and his mother quietly passed a year and two months after Cole was gone. She hadn’t even told Hank she was sick until she only had two weeks left to live.

Yeah, it’d been a rough few years.

 ** _How are you feeling?_** Connor’s next message asks when it buzzes in a few moments later. **_Maybe you should eat something before we leave this afternoon. You barely touched your lunch._**

Hank stares at his phone screen and sighs. Sure would be nice if he could compose and send texts in his damn head, too.

_not really hungry. kinda wish we were outta here_

**_I’ll make you something hot when we get back. It’s supposed to snow all night again._ **

Hank looks out the window at Detroit’s skyline. Dark and ironclad, almost steely to the touch if he were to lay a hand against it. There’s only a weak filter of daylight through the cloud cover and the thought of wading out into it later makes him shiver involuntarily.

Another message dings in from Connor, immediate confirmation that he’d been watching Hank close enough to see him shudder with a chill. **_I scanned your vitals and you aren’t running a fever._**

When Hank doesn’t answer Connor gets up and walks around to his side of the terminal and crowds up behind Hank’s chair, reaching up to press a cool palm to Hank’s forehead. His movements are smooth and practiced but far from clinical, and Hank wishes they were at home so he could lay his head in Connor’s lap and not get up again for a long time.

“I know you don’t have to touch me to run a single diagnostic,” Hank murmurs, feeling oddly bereft when Connor’s hand falls away. Nobody else around them looks up or bats an eyelash but Connor’s always been the more professional between the two of them at work, and that was…unexpected.

“No,” Connor agrees, but then takes a backward step and turns to head toward Fowler’s office, the heels of his dress shoes clacking on the tile floor. “I’ll be right back.”

Hank tries to look busy while he sits hunched at his desk, mindlessly rereading the same few lines on an old homicide report over and over again until he can’t take it anymore. He opens up a blank word document and types a few lines of gibberish into it instead before letting himself glance over at Fowler’s office. Connor is perched on the edge of one of the chairs on the other side of the Jeffrey’s desk, looking particularly convincing about something.

A minute later Hank’s trying to write out verses of Black Sabbath hits by memory when Connor comes walking back and fetches both his and Hank’s coats off the backs of their chairs.

“Captain Fowler cleared us to leave an hour earlier than planned,” Connor says, leaning in to whisper as he presses Hank’s coat into his hand. “Ham it up, I told him you aren’t feeling well and he agreed that you look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks,” Hank growls, but he still lets Connor help him into his coat and wind a scarf around his neck. He doesn’t feel sick, exactly, but he feels—unbalanced, maybe. Distracted. Like his mind is caught fast in a jamb somewhere between the past and the present, and his husband of four years may be guiding him toward the elevators now but maybe if he lingers too long in his peripheral vision he’ll see Cole peeking around the corner, on his way up with his mother to pass around those little pipe cleaner candy canes the kids used to make in school because Hank had to work Christmas Eve.

“Where the hell are you two running off to?” Reed calls from his desk, pushing away from the terminal so his chair’s wheels skid on the floor. His face is caught between a sneer and some other wild-eyed look, like he’s ready to hurdle after Hank and Connor if it means he can escape.

“The Lieutenant isn’t feeling well,” Connor says matter-of-factly as he pushes the elevator button. “Enjoy your holiday festivities tomorrow with Richard and your family, Detective Reed.”

That makes Reed stop, mouth pressed into a thin line. His top lip curls just the slightest bit and for a moment he looks like a junkyard dog debating an attack. But Connor’s blue-eyed twin is looking at him, features held at a careful impasse, and Gavin seems to know all too well he’s being watched.

“You—you too,” Reed says after a second, shoulders dropping. He looks confused for a moment, blinking in surprise at himself for nearly being something bordering on polite for once. “Merry Christmas, Andersons.”

Hank keeps up his guise of looking frail until they’re safely in the elevator and headed down to the lobby. He and Connor share a look from the corner of their eyes and Hank can’t help but crack a smile.

“Rich has Reed’s ass _whipped_ ,” he says.

“You know it,” Connor says brightly, and slides his hand into the crook of Hank’s elbow as they walk out into the cold afternoon and head towards the car.  


* * *  


Connor drives and Hank tries not to have a crisis in the passenger seat.

“Maybe this was a stupid idea,” he says, more to himself than Connor. They’re getting further from Detroit with each mile, the outer city limits slowly turning into thicker throngs of trees and boarded-up houses that haven’t been inhabited in 30 years. Despite the district’s best ongoing efforts to clean up the fallout that struck early in the century, in the end some of it had simply been left to rot and return to wilderness.

“Why do you say that?” Connor asks, keeping his eyes on the road. He doesn’t drive quite like an uncannily-correct automaton anymore, but even after all these years it’s still far too proper to look…well— _cool_. Connor drives like a mayor’s chauffeur from the 1950s.

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Hank sighs, holding a hand up only to let it slap back down against his thigh. “Just—today, the weather, whatever.” It’s a lot harder to say _because I think I’m teetering on the edge of a breakdown over my dead kid even after all these years, and I don’t want you to have to see that when you’ve already seen enough of my bullshit._

Connor looks unconvinced when he glances over and Hank feels like a pane of glass. Those brown eyes have always been able to go right through him.

“We’ve visited Cole’s grave together several times,” Connor says, keeping his hands at ten and two on the wheel as the car trundles over a short steel bridge with a roar. “You never had a problem with me coming along before.”

“Because I don’t, Con,” Hank says, clenching his jaw while he looks out the window and tries to find the right words. They’re not even at the goddamn cemetery yet and his eyes already ache and burn in phantom anticipation. Hank’s gone far softer than he’d planned to in his middle-age.

“This time of year…” he tries, swallowing against a knot of something in his throat. “Just makes it harder to handle, y’know? When I think about everything it makes me feel so—so…”

“Vulnerable?” Connor says, just as they come within sight of the cemetery’s front gate. The wrought iron has been strung with evergreen garland for the holidays and two wreaths the size of truck tires hang on the brick pillars framing the entrance. The statue of an angel standing vigil on a pedestal there still has snow from two nights before piled up around its bare feet.

Hank clears his throat, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose until it stings. He closes his eyes as Connor turns onto the narrow road that will wind back through the sprawling graveyard. “That’s a nice way of saying weak.”

“You’re far from weak, Hank,” Connor says, somehow gentle and cutting all at once. “I only meant vulnerable in the sense that your emotions are more… _raw_ , maybe, than they’d typically be because of the sentimental proximity to your memories surrounding the Christmas season. But weak is the last word I’d use to describe you.”

When Connor finally stops and parks the car he gets out and walks around to the other side, opening Hank’s door so the frigid air drops in on him like a waterfall. Hank looks up at him from where he sits, feeling smaller than he is in the presence of someone as lively and bright and beautiful as Connor.

 _My Connor_ , he has to remind himself. _My husband._

“I love our armchair counseling sessions,” Hank rasps, squinting at Connor against the backdrop of overcast sky.

“And I love you,” Connor says, waiting until Hank gets out of the car to reach up and straighten the scarf around his neck. “Even when you obstinately refuse to see the wonderful man I wake up to every damn day. Ready?”

“No,” Hank says, but reaches out to wrap his fingers around Connor’s hand anyway, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Let’s go.”

They take the gravel path back through a sea of headstones big and small, some of them newer and many of them so old and weatherworn there’s no doubt they were around nearly a hundred years before Hank was ever born. The cemetery is empty of mourners for now but a handful of graves have been visited since the last snowfall and have bright red poinsettia flowers slowly wilting in their urns. The ice will kill them overnight, but for now the vermillion stands out stark against everything dead and grey.

Cole’s marker is tucked away in a corner behind an old mausoleum, the stone structure adorned with another marble angel sitting with her wings carefully folded, serenely facing toward the eastern horizon as if waiting for an old friend. There’s a single tear on her carved face that Hank’s never seen before in all the years he’s been coming here.

“What do you really think about all this?” Hank asks Connor, gesturing around them at the tombstones and statues of sleeping lambs and saints. “People coming out here to cry in a giant fucking landfill of bones, dust, and dead people soup.”

“You know that’s not why you’re here, Hank,” Connor says softly, still holding on to Hank’s hand as they walk along the path. “People come here to reminisce about their loved ones in relative solitude. It’s peaceful, and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone a memorial if it allowed them to grieve.”

“Sometimes I wonder…” Hank starts to say, but then shakes his head, trying to will the thought away. “Never mind.”

“What do you wonder?” Connor asks, pressing his thumb into the heart of Hank’s hand.

Hank rolls his shoulder in a tired shrug. “Do you—do you think it’s pointless?” he asks, almost fumbling out the words. “Creating these fucking shrines for dead people who won’t ever know the difference.”

“No,” Connor says after a moment. “For a long time, androids weren’t even given the dignity of a burial. Unclaimed decommissioned models were all dumped in a junkyard like a mass grave—so this place is far from a landfill. This is a testament to humanity.”

That’s a lot to think about, and Hank doesn’t know if he’s capable of giving it the full attention it deserves right now. Especially not when they walk up on a familiar stone set into the ground and he sees his son’s name looking back at him.

His broad shoulders bow inward the moment he sees _Cole Henry_ _Anderson_ , and the stiff line of his body gives even more when Connor’s hand comes up to gently touch the back of his arm.

It already feels like too much at once even though there’s nobody here but the two of them, but Hank steps forward and sits in the cold grass despite the aching in his stiff joints, a small section of polished marble framed between the heels of his boots.

“Hey, bud,” Hanks says, unable to stop himself, biting into his lip while he looks off somewhere across the graveyard with eyes full of grey sky. “I thought—I thought we’d come by for a little bit. Know it’s been a while.”

He feels Connor kneel down beside him, sitting so their sides are pressed together. His presence is reassuring, grounding, but it still doesn’t stop the ache welling in Hank’s throat.

“I don’t know if it helps me,” he says with a watery laugh. “Sitting here talking to a slab of rock in the ground like it changes anything. Like he can—like he could hear me, when I know he fucking can’t.”

“Maybe what you have to say is important whether he can hear you or not,” Connor says, reaching out to brush a few dead leaves away from the perimeter of Cole’s headstone. “On the off chance he may be listening.”

Hank clears his throat, blinking hard at that. “Do you believe in an afterlife?” he asks Connor abruptly.

Connor shrugs but twists his wedding band around his finger while he talks. “Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed and diverted in a different direction. Maybe that goes for both organic and simulated energy, and if I think and feel and love and process the world all by way of electric or mechanical currents, why couldn’t it continue onward after my body breaks down?”

He goes quiet for a moment, LED briefly blinking yellow. “There’s a lot of ethical debate surrounding whether or not androids have what humans call a _soul_ , but it would make me happy to know that I could reunite with your energy somewhere again after we’re both gone.”

Hank makes a sound like a wounded animal low in his chest. “I don’t even want to think about any of that,” he says. “And I’d be the lucky one, because I’m sure I’ll bow out long before you do.”

“Hank,” Connor starts, LED gone red again. “Don’t.

“I’m just saying that if I lost you now, Con, I’d— _fuck_ ,” Hank says, reaching up to scrub a hand across his face. He doesn’t make any effort to talk anymore and only lets out a shuddering breath.

Slender fingers reach up and push the hair away from Hank’s eyes before a kiss lands against his temple. “But you won’t,” Connor says, punctuating his words with another kiss on the fine lines at the corner of Hank’s eye. “I’m not going anywhere.”

They sit there in silence for a spell, the sky getting darker now as late afternoon turns into evening. Hank reaches out and presses the pad of his thumb against the _C_ carved into Cole’s headstone, waiting until the letter is imprinted on his skin there.

“I wanted to come here to pay respects to my boy,” he says, sniffing. “Didn’t mean to get all existential on you like that.”

“You know I don’t mind,” Connor says quietly, and then reaches into his coat to fish around the interior pocket sewn in the lining. When his hand returns and unfolds, Hank sees a tiny ceramic dog figurine resting in the center of his palm. His breath catches fast when he sees it’s painted like a miniature St. Bernard.

Connor takes the little dog and sets it on the upper corner of Cole’s headstone so the figurine is sitting on its haunches, keeping stoic guard. “I saw that a few weeks ago and bought it,” he says shyly. “I was going to give it you but figured Cole may like it, too.”

Hank’s fucking crying now but just lets the tears come at this point, mopping around his face with the heel of his hand. “He’d love it,” he croaks out. “He loved that damn dog.”

Connor rubs small circles against Hank’s back, the two of them still sprawled on the cold ground. A pair of grey doves light out of a shrub nearby and take off for the woods beyond the cemetery’s walls, trilling as they fly. The temperature is dropping fast and the sky looks it may break open any minute now.

“I wish I could’ve met you,” Connor says abruptly, and it takes Hank a moment before he realizes his husband is talking to the marble slab in the ground. “You were a special boy and I know you would’ve grown into a bright young man.”

Hank has to bite back something between a laugh and a sob as he drops his face into his hands. His shoulders shake but Connor only holds onto him and keeps on talking.

“Your dad misses you every day and I know it hurts him a lot,” he says. “But he’s stronger than he thinks, and one of the strongest men I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t even be here today if it weren’t for him.”

“Connor,” Hank rasps, voice broken and wretched.

“We both know it’s true,” Connor says, LED doing one full rotation in blue. His hand comes up to Hank’s face, cupping his cheek while he thumbs away some of the wetness below his eyes. “I find time to be thankful for that every single day.”

It’s only then that Hank finally looks up and sees the snow glittering in Connor’s hair, the ice crystals standing out like dusting sugar on his dark head. More falls faster on their arms and shoulders, slowly dampening the wool of their winter coats.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Connor says, leaning in rest his temple against Hank’s shoulder so his LED is out of sight.

Hank nods and looks down at his son’s grave one last time, reaching out to touch the tiny St. Bernard’s head just to make sure it’s real.

“Love you, bud,” he says, not caring anymore how he sounds because only Connor’s here to listen. “Keep an eye on your old man, huh? Connor’s taking good care of me in the meantime.”

Hank stands first and then reaches down to help Connor up, pulling him into a chaste kiss once he’s back on his feet. Snow is gathering on the headstones and on the velveteen leaves of the last few living poinsettias as they wander back down the gravel path leading to the car, leaving the angels and the tiny St. Bernard to keep mindful watch over what they left behind.  


* * *  


Christmas lights twinkle from the eaves of buildings and houses the whole way home. Hank looks out the window at them and doesn’t think about much, thoughts drawn out into vague snapshots of abstraction. _Red, green, fucking overkill, bright_. Connor, on the other hand, continues processing everything his optical components can measure while he drives, mesmerized by the sight of Detroit transformed.

“It all looks like the inside of a giant snow globe,” he says softly. It’s one of those things that would sound childlike coming from the mouth of any other grown man, but when Connor says it Hank feels a twinge of warmth bloom in his chest. If Connor’s view of the world is anything even after five years of deviancy, it’s pretty goddamn sincere.

Hank’s still feeling scraped raw from their trip to the cemetery but he tries on a small smile, pushing any tired selfishness from the front of his mind. “Is there anywhere you wanted to stop before it gets too late?”

Connor looks over at him at that but then shakes his head, focused back on the road and the snow swirling through their headlight beams. “No, I think I’m ready to go home and call it a night,” he says, mouth twitching up. “Our tree is my favorite, anyway.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Hank says, settling back further in the seat. In the time before Connor he’d only ever gone home to an empty house and a bottle of Jack on Christmas Eve, but now he’s more than ready for a quiet night in, looking forward to a hot shower and some fresh clothes and maybe that hot soup Connor promised. All simple things, but maybe those things weren’t so simple when you were in good company.

At long last they turn onto the block and Hank feels some of the pent-up tension in his muscles unwind at the sight of their house. The lights Connor put up run on a timer, and the fat bulbs are already glowing and waiting like colorful fireflies strung along the eaves of the roof.

Sumo, well into his fourteenth year now and far past the average age expectancy for a dog his size, only lifts his head to look up when Hank and Connor bundle in from the cold. His tail thumps twice on his bed as he lets out a content sigh, happy to see his humans back home. He can’t quite hear them anymore, and instead of calling him into the kitchen Hank goes over and coaxes him up and guides him out the door so he can use the bathroom before any ice slicks the front stoop.

Connor is out of his coat and standing in the kitchen in his unbuttoned work shirt when Hank comes back in with the dog, setting another big pot on the stove. Thank Christ he can simultaneously synthesize recipes and run cooking tutorials in his field of vision, because most of what Connor tries to make or season intuitively turns out spectacularly—well. Inedible.

“Go ahead and take a shower if you want,” he says, rummaging around in the cabinet for what looks like a can of pumpkin puree and some spices Hank hardly ever touches except for when it’s chili night. “I’ll be occupied out here for a few minutes.”

Part of Hank wants to argue that Connor shouldn’t have to be fucking around in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, but he looks so focused there’s no real point in diverting him off course now.

Hank only sighs and does as he’s told, feeling a little worthless in his own home if not more than well taken care-of, and leaves his damp boots by the front door before shuffling down the hall to the bathroom. A shower should do him some good, and once he’s standing under the nearly-scalding spray it scourges some of the day’s bone-deep cold away. His finer sorrows don’t swirl away down the drain as easily, but it’s enough to help him warm up and relax.

The house smells goddamn heavenly when he emerges from the bedroom a while later, dressed in a soft henley and some plaid flannels. Hank follows his nose into the kitchen and peers into the pot simmering while Connor holds out a spoonful for him to try.

“I’ve never been the biggest fan of pumpkin shit,” Hank says, though he opens up and sucks the spoon clean without a second thought. “But Jesus, that’s good.”

Connor smiles, obviously pleased with himself. “I’m glad,” he says, dipping a fingertip into another spoonful to press a sample against his tongue. Whatever he tastes is only reduced to organic compounds and simplified ingredients at best, but it still must be satisfying on some level. “It’s ready when you are.”

And so the evening unravels from there, warm and easy, the TV playing some Christmas special Hank is only half-watches from under the sleepy droop of his lashes. He cleans up the dishes in the kitchen while Connor excuses himself to go get washed up and changed for the night, and Sumo’s snoring away in his bed, probably dreaming of sugar plums and ham hocks and warmer days at the dog park when he was a younger lad.

Hank settles back down on the sofa and clicks the television over to a digital radio station instead, letting the low hum of holiday music filter in through the speakers once the screen goes dark. He’d flipped the kitchen and foyer lights off on his way to the couch, so the only thing illuminating the room now is their squat little Christmas tree, done up in its hodge-podge of offbeat ornaments and a garland of multicolor lights.

Hank’s staring into the evergreen branches, tired eyes gone fuzzy and unfocused, when he hears somebody clear their throat from the mouth of the hallway.

“You ready for bed soo—?” he starts to say, halfway turning to glance across the room, but his voice dies and his eyes go wide when he sees Connor walking over wearing nothing at all but those scarlet panties and the lacy chemise he’d gotten in a box at the Christmas party.

Connor only smiles like a vixen and skims his fingertips up the length of Hank’s arm before sliding into his lap, giving Hank a spectacular view of just how tiny and sheer that little thong really is when it’s up close and personal.

Hank lets out a groan, big hands automatically reaching around to grope Connor’s ass. “I can’t believe you actually kept this, much less put it on,” he says. “But holy fuck, am I thankful.”

“Is it really that hard to believe?” Connor asks, reaching up to lace his fingers around the back of his husband’s neck. One of his thumbs traces the top notch of Hank’s spine, dipping below the neck of his shirt.

“On second thought, no,” Hank says, eyes sparkling some in the dim light.

“Good,” Connor tells him, LED pulsing bright blue. “I thought it might make you smile.”

Hank’s face spreads into a grin that almost reaches his eyes. “It’s gonna do a whole lot more than that, babe,” he says, and he’s still smiling when Connor bows over to kiss him.

From there Hank’s fingers sneak below the sheer chemise, hands spreading around Connor’s sides as the artificial muscles tense and the synth-skin begins to retract under the warmth of his palms. Connor doesn’t usually let his chassis shine through so early in their friskier moments together, but Hank pets him anyway, watching his hand beneath the slinky fabric as he traces the faint outline of Connor’s thirium pump.

“So,” he rumbles, feeling Connor’s pelvis grind down against the meat of his thigh with slowly building urgency. “Were you naughty or nice this year?”

“A little bit of both, I think,” Connor sighs, shuddering when Hank palms his groin through the red lace. They both seem to remember that the panties are crotchless at the same moment, and Hank doesn’t hold off on an opportunity to slip his fingers lower to stroke the impossibly soft seam behind Connor’s balls.

“Good enough to get your gift from Santa, huh?” Hank says around a little laugh, watching as Connor’s mouth drops open, his parted lips already wet and swollen from biting into them. “What’s the first thing on your list?”

 Connor grinds down against Hank’s hand, the front of the panties straining against his cock, already flushed rosy just for the sheer aesthetic hell of it. “God, Hank,” he says, LED flashing yellow. “I—oh, I already have it right here.”

That makes Hank pause. He slowly pulls his hands back up, letting one rest on Connor’s thigh while the other reaches up to touch his face. Connor’s chest is rising and falling with gently labored breaths he doesn’t need to take, lashes dark against his cheeks while he tips his face into Hank’s palm and leaves a kiss there.

“Do you know how gorgeous you are?” Hank asks. He hates how rough and shaky the words sound in his throat, but that won’t stop him from saying them.

Connor’s mouth curls up into a tiny smile, squinting one eye open as he leans forward in Hank’s lap to press another kiss against the hinge of his jaw. “Only because you remind me so often,” he murmurs there, fingers still curled in the damp hair at the nape of Hank’s neck.

“Now, Mr. Anderson,” he adds, tipping Hank’s chin up for another brush of a kiss. “If you’d be so kind as to deliver the second thing written on my list.”

“What’s that?” Hank asks, palms dragging up Connor’s thighs to wrap around his hips.

“The gift of you taking me to bed and fucking me,” Connor says plainly, sliding his hand down the front of Hank’s pajama pants and gently squeezing his cock before Hank even knows what’s what.

“Fuck,” Hank hisses, feeling his cock jump in Connor’s hand, and that in and of itself is a Christmas miracle. “The bedroom might be too far—”

“I’ll carry you,” Connor says, swiping his thumb just-so against the burning tip, but then lets out a surprised little sound when Hank gets both hands under his ass and lifts him up only to drop him back down on the sofa again.

Connor’s LED flashes red but then Hank is kneeling between his legs, crowding up over Connor’s body so their combined weight makes the couch springs groan. The folded afghan on the back slides down to the floor but they leave it where it falls.

“We’ll ruin the couch,” Connor says, though he doesn’t do anything to stop Hank from hooking a thumb in the panties and yanking one side down over his hip.

“We can buy another one,” Hank says, feeling Connor squirm underneath him as he tries to shimmy further out of the lace underwear. “It’s either right here or the floor, sweetheart, and I’d rather not wake up with carpet burn.”

Hank all but lifts Connor’s ass in the air to stuff one of their lumpy pillows under his hips and rolls the panties down to his knees so Connor can kick them off. They land somewhere on the coffee table and Connor’s already pawing at the waistband of Hank’s pajama pants, trying to angle his crotch up against the tenting fabric.

“Take this off,” Connor says impatiently, rucking up the front of Hank’s shirt next, shameless and always so sure. “I want to feel all of you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hank growls, but does what his husband asks anyway. He pulls back long enough to fumble out of his pants and pull his shirt over his head, letting them land somewhere at the other end of the couch and on the floor. When he turns back to look at Connor he’s greeted with the sight of two brown eyes looking up at him with as much love and wonder as Hank’s ever seen and probably never deserved.

The Christmas tree lights are just barely bright enough that Hank thinks he can see himself reflected there in the glassy surface of Connor’s manmade retinas. It makes him flush down to his chest and stutter in his movements, and the room goes silent save for the low thrum of holiday music and the quiet ticking of the heater unit under the window.

“Don’t think too hard,” Connor says, and an android telling him that would almost be laughable if Hank’s chest wasn’t wrought so tight at the vision laid out in front of him. “Come here and let me hold you.”

That makes Hank wonder if this is where he’ll meet his end, stark-ass naked on his couch on Christmas Eve while his robot husband writhes underneath him in half of a naughty Santa lingerie set. His poor old heart sure takes a hit when Connor says the things he does.

“I’ll hold you if you hold onto me,” he says hoarsely, stupidly, but Connor knows exactly what he means. And somehow those words seem to extend beyond this room, beyond this moment, but Hank’s not wasting any more time with needless navel-gazing right now when he’s spent the past few years goddamn thankful for what he’s got.

In the end, without needing anymore words, Hank kneels in the open spread between Connor’s thighs and reaches down to touch the place where he’s already—blissfully, beautifully—ready and waiting, fingers coming away slick with the arousal that had probably been building since Connor first stepped into that lacy thong.

“So wet for me, baby,” Hank says, hushed and reverent. He takes his cock in hand and presses it against Connor’s hole, covering his mouth in a kiss as he slowly presses into the dizzying tightness of his body. Connor only whines so prettily and gives into it, grabbing Hank’s biceps and holding on until they’re pressed flush together and breathing each other’s air in the soft light.

True to his word, Connor wraps his arms around Hank’s shoulders and pulls him close, doing nothing for now but reveling in how they fit together. Hank buries his face in the crook of Connor’s neck to mouth a messy kiss there and drags a hand down his side until it’s cupped under Con’s ass for leverage. He gives an experimental tilt of his hips and Connor clings to him, knees braced tightly on either side of Hank’s body.

There’s no rush or frenzy to it, only Connor’s sweet sighs and the little sounds he makes as Hank grinds into his ass, thrusting lazily, slow and agonizingly deep. Connor rakes his fingers through Hank’s hair with one hand and grips his shoulder with the other, palm pressed over an old knife scar twenty years older than Connor himself.

Connor’s cock is caught between their bellies where his chemise has ridden up, the sweet and easy friction of it good enough that his eyes are streaming. “Hank,” he whines, filled to the brim and trembling while his LED spins scarlet. “Oh _fuck_ , I—I need your hand.”

Hank goes to reach down between them but Connor shakes his head, parting his lips instead, and then Hank knows what he wants. With as much tenderness as he can muster, he takes his left hand and slips the two middle fingers into the wet, simulated heat of Connor’s mouth and shudders when Con wraps his pretty lips around them up to the last knuckle, sucking hard while he moans in ecstasy so long and hard that Hank can feel the vibration in his cock.

When Connor’s tongue traces around the warm gold of Hank’s wedding band he thinks he might come undone on the spot. He presses his fingers down further, deeper, knowing that Connor can take them all the way down his throat if he wanted, gently fucking them in and out of his lover’s eager mouth. He’s dizzy with it but ruts back into Connor’s ass with a deep thrust for good measure, head dropping down into the crook between Con’s neck and shoulder while the definitions of their bodies blur and bleed together, one ending where the other begins.

Saline tears are spilling down Connor’s face in earnest now, sparkling there in the glow of the Christmas lights, and when Hank grinds into him again he sobs around his husband’s fingers and shakes undone in the heat between their bellies and the sheer chemise.

“That’s it sweetheart,” Hank murmurs against Connor’s ear, panting now as he slowly fucks both of them through it. He withdraws his soaked fingers from Connor’s mouth, slick with analysis fluid, and takes his jaw in hand to turn his face into a kiss. Connor’s hands come up to push his hands through Hank’s hair as they rock together, and the feeling of his blunt nails on Hank’s scalp makes chills crop up along the backs of his arms and shoulders.

“I love you, Hank,” Connor whispers, soft and sated now, wrapping his legs around Hank’s middle as he waits for a second wave of release to find them. “You were so strong today.”

And Hank doesn’t feel strong, at least not when his knees are aching and he’s teetering on the edge of collapsing into Connor’s arms, but if this beautiful android of his thinks it, well, maybe it has to be true. Connor’s right about everything else, after all.

Hank gets his hands back up under Connor’s ass and lifts him, shoving him against the arm of the sofa, muscles unfurling with one last burst of energy as he fucks into him with fast, deep jerks of his hips. Connor pushes back in kind, braced there and urging him along, and when he bears down on Hank’s cock and cries out for a second time it’s all over, Hank tipping headfirst into some temporary ether as he sinks in to the hilt and spills deep into his husband’s body with a shaky groan.

When Hank comes back to himself Connor is smiling and kissing his damp brow, still content to lie there halfway bent over the side of the sofa with Hank slowly softening inside him. His legs are still hitched up around Hank’s hips, though, and Hank knows he’s not going anywhere fast.

“Merry Christmas,” Connor says, reaching up to push a stray piece of hair away from Hank’s forehead with the tip of one finger. His other hand draws phantom shapes across the wide plane of Hank’s back, soothing up and down the ridge of his spine. “The clock struck midnight a few minutes ago.”

Hank presses a sleepy kiss somewhere next to Connor’s eye before reaching down to pull the fallen blanket off the floor. He tucks it up under Connor’s hips before pulling out with a wince, but the android only sighs and wraps his arms around Hank’s neck before drawing him in close despite their mess. They lay wedged together on the narrow sofa, one side of the blanket pulled up over Hank’s bare ass while Connor tangles their legs up and looks at Hank with his eyes full of gold light again.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Hank murmurs into his hair, nosing into the softness there. He closes his eyes and breathes in and out, calm enough now that he can hear the low hum of holiday music filtering through the room once more, can smell the faint perfume of evergreen wafting off their tree. The house is mostly quiet, though, pillowed and cushioned by the powdery snowfall coming down steadily outside.

The rest of the coming holiday can go fuck itself, as far as Hank’s concerned, so long as he gets to hold Connor right here in his arms and not move until he’s good and ready. No giftwrap required, minus the red baby doll chemise he looks forward to stripping off Connor a little later when they finally make it back to the bedroom.

As far as Christmases to come go, this is all Hank could want or need and more.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
\+ ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +

 

  
  
  
  
  


<Christmas evening. It’s warm and quiet in the Anderson household. Hank and Connor are snuggled up on the sofa again—this time in their flannel pajamas with an old holiday film playing on the television. Suddenly, a text from Richard appears on Connor’s visual display.>

 **Richard:** Did the Lieutenant enjoy your lingerie?  
**Connor:** …  
**Connor:** You presume he’s seen me wearing it.  
**Richard:** Don’t be coy with me, brother. We both know he’s seen you wearing it, and then again without it once he likely stripped it off you himself.  
**Connor:** True ;)  
**Connor:** Wait.  
**Connor:** It was YOU who gave me that box?  
**Richard:** I saw it in Detective Reed’s Amazon wish list six months ago but bought him the black lace set instead because it better suits his ruddy complexion. His bitterness after the precinct holiday party was palpable but was entirely worth it when he he opened his gifts this morning.  
**Connor:** Oh my God

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas in February! I naively had no idea the BB18 posting would run this far into the new year so I hope y'all had some holiday appetite leftover from December. 
> 
> Big s/o to everybody who withstood me ringing my hands for the past two months over this damn low-stakes fic, lol. You guys are the best. If you're on twitter and ever wanna hang, I'm @honkforhankcon :)


End file.
